The last breath
Beca BKFMACBA 2022
is an exploration of MACBA’s permanent collection, offering a site-specific pedagogical initiative that addresses the concept of death from a diverse range of perspectives and forms.
This project also engages in a dialogue with “Morir guay,” an investigation by the DU-DA collective seeking reconciliation with the ongoing process of life. Through critical practices and perspectives surrounding prevalent modes of relating to the end, the initiative explores alternative ontologies, rituals, and sensitivities that allow for a more peaceful, responsible, and situated approach to this transformation. The project brings forth voices that speak of alternative cosmological models, exploring ways of dying that go beyond the dichotomy of science/spirituality, focusing on counter-hegemonic narratives and complex systems for understanding the apparent duality of life/death. Themes include death beyond the human, the continuous transformation of the material, the life or death of the non-material, interspecies relationships, necropolitics, questioning beginnings and endings, alternative death rites and protocols, biological obsolescence, and more.
The initiative poses questions such as: Which works from the permanent collection resonate with the research themes of “Morir Guay”? Which artworks reference a more human idea of death, and which explore a more-than-human perspective? Are there female artists in the collection whose work reflects their connection to death or mourning? Do any pieces in the collection reflect on current necropolitics? In what ways can art help us connect with the ineffable in the experience of dying?
The project includes two activations: a workshop conducted in the exhibition spaces, tested with a group of five people, and a series of itineraries through the collection archive in conversation with the “Morir Guay” research.
